Читать книгу Havana Five - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

Mack Bolan studied the landscape spread out before him as the Military Airlift Command flight circled for its final approach into Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. He had an almost unobstructed view from his seat in the forward compartment of the huge Boeing 757 cargo carrier, courtesy of one of his oldest friends and allies, Hal Brognola. As director of America’s most covert antiterrorist organzation, Stony Man, Brognola had requested Bolan’s attention for this mission under the behest of the President of the United States. As a friend, Brognola had asked Bolan to accept the mission. And as one friend would do for another under those circumstances, the Executioner accepted.

Bolan had come to Cuba seeking one thing: information.

“It’s very simple,” Brognola had told him a few hours earlier in an abandoned hangar at Andrews AFB. “We need you to fly into Guantánamo Bay, question a prisoner named Basilio Melendez regarding the disappearance of Colonel Mackenzie Waterston and then act based on the information provided.”

“And when you say you want me to act, you mean…”

“In whatever manner you deem the best interests of this country,” Brognola replied. “Colonel Waterston was in charge of military operations related to Plan Colombia. You have some idea of that initiative?”

Bolan nodded. “The President’s Executive Order 1-1-7-3-Alpha to the Secretary of State. The State Department is charged with conducting all operations, diplomatic or otherwise, necessary to eliminate the drug and arms-running activities designed to support the FARC, AUC and ELN, and to neutralize such operations deemed a terrorist threat to the U.S.”

“I see you keep up with the times,” Brognola said with a grin.

The Executioner shrugged. “I have my sources.”

“Yeah, and it’s not as though this information would be necessarily difficult to come by. Anyway, the Chief of Staff appointed Colonel Waterston to the Pentagon with instructions to monitor the activities of a number of special ops units operating out of Guantánamo Bay. Our boys down there got particularly interested when intelligence reports pointed to the possibility there was an ELN training camp operating full-time in Cuba. Up to this point, we’d never been able to confirm it.”

“And this is where Melendez comes in?”

“Right.” Brognola pulled the unlit cigar from his mouth, studied it a moment, then stuck it into the other side of his mouth and continued. “All Cuban prisoners were returned to their country back in the mid-nineties when we stopped detaining nationals at Gitmo. Under normal pretenses, any Cuban citizen caught there in a crime is automatically extradited to Cuban authorities.”

“Why’s Melendez special?”

“Just for the reasons you might have guessed. He had information on Waterston before we even asked. And it’s not the first time we’ve encountered him. You see, Melendez has been picked up many times before. It’s how we’ve managed to make contact with him. Normally, we turn him loose to the Cubans and they just chalk him up as a troublemaker.”

“They probably break out the party hats every time he shows up on MP blotter,” Bolan concluded.

“Precisely,” Brognola said with a frown. “But when we heard what he had to say this last time around, we thought it was probably better to keep him detained for a while.”

“Why?”

“Because Waterston’s missing and his disappearance fits what Melendez told us. So far, anyway.”

“How does this tie to the ELN and their training camp?”

“Don’t know yet,” Brognola replied. “That’s what we need you to find out. Striker, the Man is getting damned nervous about this, and I can’t really say I blame him. Waterston isn’t the only one to disappear. Two other agents with the Defense Intelligence Agency have been MIA over a week. We have reason to believe they’re connected with Waterston’s disappearance. We need you at Gitmo as soon as possible. You’ll use the Brandon Stone cover, a special investigator with the Criminal Investigation Division.”

Now dressed in full Army greens, Bolan considered the mission ahead. He didn’t have the first idea what Melendez might know, but the Cuban was his only lead to finding Mackenzie Waterston. How the DIA fit into all of it was another mystery—one he’d probably solve once he located Waterston or at least found out what happened to the missing Pentagon official—as well as the alleged ELN training camp. Brognola didn’t have to tell Bolan what to do if he actually discovered the ELN operating inside Cuba. Bolan already knew what to do.

Identify. Isolate. Destroy.

“WELCOME TO GUANTÁNAMO BAY, sir,” the Marine corporal said with a salute.

Bolan eyed the young Marine’s name tag. “Relax, Northrop, before you strain something.”

The Marine eased up and flashed a sheepish smile. “Aye, sir.”

Bolan tossed his OD canvas bag in the back of the open-top M998 Hummer—making sure it remained in easy reach—and then climbed in the front. The bag had been loaded aboard the flight and carried two tools of the Executioner’s trade: a Beretta 93-R pistol and the flagship pride and joy of Israeli Military Industries, a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. Spare magazines and holsters accompanied the arms.

“This your first time in Gitmo, sir?” the Marine asked when they were under way.

“No,” Bolan said. “But it’s been a while.”

“It’s damn hot down here,” the Marine said. Bolan looked at him with disbelief at first but then noticed the broad smile on the soldier’s face. “Just kidding, sir. I knew you’d already figured that out.”

Bolan nodded, acknowledged the quip with a half smile and then decided to take his own advice to lighten up. They made small talk the remainder of their five-minute drive from the airstrip to the main detention facility. The Marine indicated he’d wait until Bolan finished.

“Might be a while,” the Executioner said.

“No problem, sir. I’m your escort while you’re on the base. Once we’ve finished here, I’ll show you to the VIP billets.”

Bolan nodded and moved inside. He passed through two metal detectors—requiring the removal of all his brass and medals and submission to a hand wand before they cleared him—and then signed in. Once the basics were complete, a Marine cadre escorted the Executioner to a six-by-six room occupied by a bare, gunmetal gray table bolted to the floor and two plastic folding chairs. He waited nearly ten minutes before a door with a wire-mesh window opened and a short man in neon-orange coveralls stepped into the room under heavy guard.

Bolan stood against the wall, arms folded, and gestured to the unoccupied chairs. “Sit down.”

He studied Basilio Melendez as he sat. The man had black hair and a matching beard. His brown eyes possessed a beady curiosity. A pair of faint scars ran down the right side of his neck. His arms were grimy and soiled, and his fingers were stained yellow from years of continuous tobacco use.

“You’re Melendez,” Bolan said.

The man said nothing as he obviously perceived Bolan hadn’t meant it as a question. That demonstrated he wasn’t obtuse, and the Executioner knew he’d have to tread cautiously on this one. Bolan wouldn’t get far being coy with Melendez; the Cuban was obviously intelligent. Besides, he’d met guys like Melendez before and he’d found he could never quite trust them. They were always studying the angles—looking for the best possible way to get ahead—and they had a knack for manipulating even the most unfavorable circumstances to their advantage given the time and opening.

“My name’s Stone,” Bolan began. “I’m with the Criminal Investigation Division of the United States Army. I’m told you have information that’s of great interest to the U.S. government.”

Melendez didn’t say anything for a minute. He just sighed deeply a couple of times and peered at Bolan from under hooded eyelids. It looked as though he’d been through hell. Bolan wanted to offer him something to drink, maybe get him some cigarettes because he knew prisoners weren’t permitted to smoke; anything that might help establish a rapport with him. That was assuming Melendez wanted to cooperate.

Abruptly, and in flawless English, Melendez said, “What do you wish to know?”

“That’s a start,” Bolan said, and he took a seat across from Melendez. “Tell me how you know about Colonel Waterston.”

“I spend lots of time in Cuban jails,” he said. “I overhear things.”

“Okay, fine, but why would Waterston’s name come up in a Cuban jail?”

“It seems you know very little about my country, Stone,” Melendez replied. “You have heard of Havana Five?”

Bolan shook his head, although he knew plenty about them. The crime lords of the Cuban underworld controlled nearly all the illicit trades throughout the country from their power base in Havana, and had done so for the past three decades. Beginning in the early seventies, Havana Five overwhelmed the Cuban community with drugs, guns, sex and every other profitable vice imaginable. Five men, each with a specific piece of the Cuban island, pooled their resources and built the single most powerful crime cartel in history.

“Many believe they do not exist,” Melendez said. “That they have never existed. But I, you see…I know better. I know these men are real. I know they exist and I know what they’re capable of doing. And I know exactly what they did to your friend, Waterston.”

“And what’s that?”

“They killed him,” Melendez said. “I hear they shot him through the head and they dumped his body.”

“Where?”

“How should I know this? The men I heard talking did not say. Perhaps he was buried, perhaps he sleeps with the fishes. The point is that I hear he’s dead and I believe it. And if I say more, then I’m dead.”

Bolan shook his head. “You’re under our protection now, Melendez. We’re not going to throw you back into circulation again.”

“You? You think you can protect me here?” Melendez scowled and emitted a scoffing laugh. “Don’t be naive. Nobody is safe from Havana Five. My days are numbered, of this I’m sure.”

Bolan leaned forward. “Then why come to us if you don’t think we can protect you? Why not take your chances out there on the streets of your own country?”

“Because maybe in here I have a small chance. Out there, I am dead for certain.”

“Why? What makes you think they even know you have this information?”

“Because the people I know, they know other people. And those people are connected to Havana Five. There is much money to be made in their business, American. And they do not like when others interfere with their profit. They will go to great lengths to keep making money, to keep their society secret.”

“To the point they think they can hide an ELN terrorist training camp inside Cuba without us finding out?” Bolan asked.

Something changed in Melendez’s expression, but the Cuban quickly recovered. Not before Bolan struck a nerve, however. For a long time they shared only silence. Bolan didn’t plan to say anything else. It seemed the better tactic would be to wait for Melendez to speak first, to betray something he thought Bolan didn’t know about. Melendez would hold on to every ace he could in the hope of swinging a better deal down the line if things went sour or the scanty information he provided didn’t pan out.

“How do you know about this?”

Bolan decided to show his own cards. “Come on, Melendez. It’s what Waterston was working on. We both know it. Just like I know it’s pretty unlikely you would overhear talk of Waterston’s murder without mention of why he was killed. So quit pretending and talk.”

And for the next half hour, Basilio Melendez talked of two men—Americans being held in a Cuban jail—who spoke of killing Waterston and how they were betrayed by someone inside Havana Five. He also told how they talked to each other in English because the cops weren’t present and he was the only other one in the jail, and how he’d pretended not to speak a word of it. And they talked and talked, and they revealed how they had made a deal with someone to let them in on the location of the training camp, and instead they were betrayed and barely escaped with their necks intact. And finally they had traveled to a remote suburb of Matanzas and purposely got arrested in the hope of evading their unnamed pursuers. It was a wild story.

And Mack Bolan believed every word.

“But you never heard where this training camp was at?” Bolan asked after Melendez finished his narrative.

The Cuban shook his head. “I do not think they knew.”

Bolan rose then. “I’m going to look into this, Melendez. In the meantime, I’ll see about getting you moved off the base and back to the U.S. I think you’ll be safer there.”

“Please, Stone,” Melendez said with pleading eyes. “I care nothing for myself. Like I said, I’m a dead man. But my little sister…she has been good. Please, you must protect her. I will do anything.”

Bolan would only promise he’d look into it and then left the detention facility. He needed to run this new intelligence by Brognola to see what came of it before he’d know the best way to proceed. Stony Man maintained a technological resources network more advanced than anything available to Bolan in the field, and Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman—a cybernetics wizard extraordinaire and intelligence sponge—could run through the scenarios and come back with more sound leads in one-tenth the time it would take Bolan to run down the old fashioned way.

Northrop waited outside, just as he’d promised. “Ready to go, sir?”

“Yeah, let’s head to my billet,” Bolan said as he got into the Hummer.

The trip across the base to the VIP billet area took less than ten minutes. Bolan climbed from the vehicle and retrieved his bag. Northrop disembarked and perfunctorily led him to the private quarters due the rank of a colonel. Northrop engaged him in another minute or so of idle chitchat, showed him where to find the basic amenities, but then obviously sensed Bolan’s wish to be alone and left him to his own devices.

Bolan waited until he heard the Hummer pull away and then went to the phone on a nightstand. He picked up the receiver and froze. Hairs stood up on the back of his neck and his combat sense screamed at him to…

Duck!

The world around him became a whirlwind storm of broken glass and wood shards as the window above the nightstand exploded. Bolan catapulted his body across the bed, snatching his canvas travel bag as he landed on the opposite side and behind relative cover. He reached inside and retrieved the .44 Magnum.

Bolan crossed to a window at the corner of his billet and peered around the light gray curtain. Two men toting machine pistols made a beeline for him. Bolan pushed out the flimsy aluminum frame of the metal screen, tracked on the closer of the pair and squeezed the trigger. A 380-grain boattail slug punched through the man’s chest and blew a hole out his back. He spun under the impact while still in forward motion, and his finger jerked against the trigger of the SMG. A battery of rounds hammered the dirt before man and weapon struck the ground and went silent.

The second gunner realized they had acted hastily and rushed for the cover of a large external air recirculation unit protruding from the ground. He triggered a few volleys of 9 mm rounds in Bolan’s direction. The warrior ducked back to avoid perforation and the rounds either slapped the exterior wall or buzzed angrily past his head. He spun and headed out the front door, sprinting from the billet at an angle, intent on flanking his enemy.

It worked. Bolan managed to clear his line of fire and acquire his opposition in the sights of the Desert Eagle before the man could bring his own weapon to bear. Bolan triggered the weapon twice. The first round of his double-tap caught the gunner in the gut, tearing away a good part of his intestine and stopping the man in his tracks. The second .44 Magnum round hit the man at a point just above the bridge of the nose and continued until it blew out the back of his head in a gory spray of blood, bone and gray matter. The gunman toppled to the ground.

Bolan tracked a 360 with the muzzle of his weapon before relaxing somewhat. He’d been in-country less than two hours and somebody had tried to kill him. He’d have a tough one explaining that to the base Provost Marshal, let alone trying to determine how someone could have compromised his cover so quickly.

Before the Executioner could consider his next option, the sound of the phone ringing inside his billet demanded attention. Bolan sprinted back to the building and snatched the receiver from the cradle midway through the fifth ring.

“Yeah, Stone, here.”

“Colonel Stone, this is Lieutenant Trundle, I’m officer of the day here at the base detention center. You were here a while ago questioning one of our prisoners.”

“Right, Basilio Melendez.”

“I’m sorry to report this, sir, but Melendez was just involved in an altercation with another prisoner. He was stabbed. We’ve transported him to the base infirmary, but he isn’t expected to make it.”